New Beginnings
by twiknham
Summary: COMPLETE Based on the movies, NOT SAC and 2nd GIG. Section 9 is being reinstated, follow the members as they deal with putting back together that which was broken. Rated for Language and Violence
1. New Beginnings

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Ghost in the Shell. It is owned by Shirow Masamune. I enjoy the story, and write for the non-profit fun of entertaining others. Please enjoy.

**Chapter 1: New Beginnings**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
_(Figure it out_) 

I don't know which saying I hate the most. The one about it being better to have love and lost, or the one about setting someone free hoping for the eventual return. They were both written by people who understood shit about the human heart. Three months ago, the Major disappeared; or better to say, her body was destroyed and they never recovered the brain box. Section 9 was disbanded after the tragedy due to political unrest and rumors of high-level espionage that resulted in the disappearance of a top-level agent, a cyborg no less.

(Batou)

(Chief?)

(The same. If I told you Section 9 was being reinstated, would you be interested?)

(But…without the Major…)

(She handpicked each member, and you were her top pick. Do you not think the team could find someone to fill the space she left?)

(NEVER!)

(I see. How about you filling her spot and we find a replacement for your position?)

(I am unfit for this responsibility. There can never be a replacement for Motoko.)

(I disagree about you being unfit, but I will investigate our options.)

(Options?)

(Be at my office 07:00. We will discuss it.)

The link ended. I was again sitting alone in my apartment, drinking Kirin, and looking out the windows at Tokyo. _Where are you Motoko?_

07:00, I'm standing in front of Aramaki's office. Suddenly the door opens and Ishikawa walks out. "Morning."

"Morning." He's shaking his head.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just some ringing in my ears, a side effect of the last skirmish we had in the old city. You know, the one in which I saved your ass. It'll go away in a while." He headed down the hall to his next destination.

"Come in Batou." The gruff voice of Chief Aramaki echoed in his office. "Close the door behind you, we're not running a peep show here."

"Is Section 9 really gearing back up?"

"Yes." He turned and looked out the window. "With one slight modification." He reached into his drawer and pulled out a chip.

"What the hell is that?"

Aramaki looked at it with interest. "It's a tracking device, completely invasive and electronically invisible. It can be switched on in the event contact is lost with you. It will allow us to at least make a ghost retrieval."

"You're thinking of the Major aren't you? How her head was crushed and they were never able to find her brain box." Aramaki turned and looked out over downtown.

"Yes. She was an immeasurable loss to me both professionally and personally."

_The chief had a personal relationship with Motoko?_ Aramaki turned and immediately read my face. His laugh was rough, unused sounding.

"Batou, you are so predictable in some ways." He sat down behind his desk. "The Major and I were friends, nothing more. I miss her friendship." He tented his fingers and glared through me. "Now, get down to hardware and have that chip implanted so we can go back to work. Dismissed." He watched as I stood and walked out the door.

Dr. Akai was waiting for me in the hardware room. "Hello Batou, have a present for me?" I handed him the chip. "Very good."

"Is this going to take long?"

"No. It will be quick and painless." The doctor turned back to Ishikawa to finish his work.

"What, you have a hot date tonight?"

I looked over at Ishikawa, still strapped in and laughing at my face. "Your sister said not to call after 9pm, she hates being interrupted."

Ishikawa blinked then threw me a bird. The doctor unhooked his cyber connections after the routine check, and Ishikawa came over and smacked me on the back. "I'll have to remember that one, Batou. See you in the ready room." The doors swished behind him, but I was already being powered down to receive my chip.

ssssss

(_Batou_) (_Batou_) (W_ake up!_)

"Motoko." I suddenly heard whispering around me. I blinked open eyes and saw two red fuzzy blurs and a short white-headed blur. "Chief. What happened to me? Everything is out of focus."

The white head turned to the left red blob. "Fix him NOW!" Pretty impressive for a Japanese leprechan. Suddenly my sight was dead on.

"I'd say it was good to see you, but WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?" I looked over at him in confusion.

"We don't know. One minute you're getting the chip inserted and the program uploaded, the next you're laid out on the table, fried."

"Am I okay, was anything essential damaged?" I was running internal checks, paranoid I'd lost some critical function.

"Nothing was damaged. The team will be assembling in the ready room at 09:00."

"Including Togusa?"

"No, everyone except Togusa, he's still in a coma."

"Well, one could hope."

Aramaki turned, but I clearly heard his parting words. "And one does."

**A/N:** Welcome to another Twiknham tale, I will repeat a couple of suggested recommendations. I ask you to refrain from using curse words in the reviews. Only because reviews are not rated. I cuss in my stories, cussing does not bother me, I just ask you to be considerate of others. Flames do not bother me, unless they have lots of cussing. I learn from both good reviews and bad reviews. Feedback is the ONLY way I know if this story is good/bad/pathetic. Lastly, I ask you refrain from adding spoilers in your reviews, this is based solely on the movies, and only barely touches on things from the series.

As with the other stories (Diary isn't a story, it's a series of random entries), this is complete. It will be updated on a weekly basis, irregardless of any hounding I receive. I make no promises when I will update. I'm currently updating another one on Wed/Thur, so it will probably NOT be on the same night.

_And as always, I am DELIGHTED that you're taking time to read my tale._ I hope I wove a good one. -TK


	2. Resurrection

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any rights to GITS, either OVA or SAC/2nd Gig. All rights are Shirow Masamune. I hope you enjoy Chapter 2.

**Chapter 2: Resurrection**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

When I stepped into the ready room, everyone was there, and I mean everyone. "Batou, the Major here was just telling us how you saved her from that big armored tank." I looked over, and Motoko nodded in acknowledgement before turning back to Saito and finishing her conversation.

(Major?)

She didn't even blink. (Yes Batou…)

(I saw you die.)

(No, you saw my body die. Don't forget there's more to us than a body.)

My last memories were of the tank crushing her head, and pulling her to me.

(_Details_)

"What did you say?" Everyone turned and looked at me.

"We said you were a colossal ass, but when has that ever stopped you?" Ishikawa grinned before walking over to the table with a cup of coffee.

"No, the part about details…"

"God is in the details." Saito smiled. He was such a smart ass behind that calm façade of his. Sometimes…

"But no one said anything about God here." Ishikawa leaned over and hit my head with his knuckles before turning to Aramaki. "Are you SURE he checked out fine?"

"Yes, perfectly fine." He turned to the major. "Major, why don't you update us on your undercover operation."

She cocked a hip on the edge of the desk and started explaining that after her body was destroyed, her brain was placed in a different type of body by Megatech and she went deep into Section 6 to bring justice for the crimes committed by the people who developed the PuppetMaster.

All I could do was stare at her. There was a big blank spot between the time I took the mecha out and when I woke up on the table in Section 9's Hardware Unit. _What happened between those two?_

_(details_)

I blinked and looked hard at Kusanagi. _Hip cock, OK. Clothing choice, usual. Eye glare…eye glare…_

"Batou, do you have a problem?" She was glaring at me.

Aramaki leaned forward and steepled his fingers. "Yes Batou, is there an issue with the Major?"

"No."

"Then quit starting. You look like you're deciding if I'm fresh enough to eat for dinner." She walked right up to me. "I'm not an entrée."

Ishikawa smacked me again. "Caught staring at her breasts huh? Happens to the best of us." He leaned close. "I'm telling you, they're a D."

I swear I'm going to flatten him one of these days. It wasn't even worth a response.

"IF that's all, you are dismissed." Major had her hands in her jacket pockets and watched as we stood. "Not you Batou."

So I waited. I hate waiting. I'm a man of action. When the room was clear, she walked over and sat beside me. "Yes?"

She stared at her hands clasped between her knees. "You've been my closest friend for years. One of the only people who understands what I go through and feel. She looked at me. "Don't be mad at me for not letting you know I was alive."

I looked at her. "I'll forgive that. I'm just glad you're alive. I was very worried about you. If I'd lost you…" How could I put that kind of loss into words?

(_You won't_)

"Excuse me?"

"What?" Her look was completely innocent.

I suddenly stood. Something was very wrong here and I needed to get out. "Have you seen Togusa?"

"No, not since I came back."

"You need to. It would help him to know you survived." I turned and left.

ssssss

I checked the car carefully, unable to shake that uneasy feeling. It was almost as if someone had broken in. Touching everything; but taking nothing. Everything felt… rearranged. There was nothing wrong with the car, but the weird feeling followed me out of the garage. I drove by the hospital twice before I decided it was okay to go in.

When I got to Togusa's room, I walked in on an old woman sitting in a chair facing the old man in the bed. Startled, she looked up at me. "Jeremy?"

I stepped further into the room so she could see clearly. "Sorry, I must have the wrong room." I turned to leave.

"Are you looking for the police officer that used to be here?" I froze inside, but turned back to face her. Past tense phrases are paralyzing to the mind. The imagination works a thousand worst-case scenarios before we even have a chance to breathe.

"Yes."

"Several other people were by here earlier. They moved him this morning to Room 2501 after he woke up. Heard he was in a coma for a long time."

"Yes, he was. Thank you." As I turned to go, I suddenly remembered. "Good luck with your husband, I hope he recovers." She gently grabbed the old man's hand and squeezed, smiling at me with tears of tempered hope in her eyes. I quietly shut the door behind them to give them privacy. _2501, why does that seem so familiar? Wait. That was the number given to the PuppetMaster._

I pushed the up button on the elevator and waited. When the doors opened, I realized I would have to wait for the next car. Since my modified body weighs in around 1100kg, I would have max'd out the weight capacity of the public elevator. After the second full load, I decided to take the stairs. _Damn I'm noisy when running up steps. I'll have to work on that._ As I flung open the door, I received a very strange look from a startled nurse, but I just shrugged my shoulders and looked sheepish. "I needed the exercise." She smiled and walked on, paying no attention to my normal breathing.

It didn't take me long to find Room 2501. I pushed open the door and was greeted by a much relieved looking Mrs. Togusa. "So, how's he doing?"

Tears started running down her cheeks. "Much better now that he's awake." She hugged me as a vent for her emotions.

A quiet voice interrupted. "Good to see you Batou, but get your hands off my wife. Makes me wonder what liberties you've taken while I've been on vacation." I looked over and Togusa wore that goofy-ass grin of his. I reached down and squeezed her butt just to rile him and winked at her when his heart monitor went crazy. Miki smacked me lightly and leaned over to kiss her husband on the cheek, he was looking me in the eyes. "You did that on purpose."

I grinned widely. "Of course. Someone had to get your heart pumping again." I leaned against the wall. "So, when are you getting out of here?"

"Hopefully in the next couple of days." He closed his eyes. "The Major came by, she looked healthy."

I grunted in response.

"What?"

"Nothing. Did she tell you why she disappeared?" I shifted enough to put my hands in my pockets.

"A little. I'm just glad she's with us." He grunted as the air mattress on the bed shifted and agitated his sore muscles.

"You and everyone else." I looked out the window. Suddenly I was brought out of my musing by a soft hand on my arm. I had blinked out and Miki motioned that Togusa was trying to get my attention. I turned away from the window and looked at my coworker.

"Batou, is your ghost talking to you?"

My jaw tightening was my only response to his question. "Something is."

"About the Major?" His monitors started blipping again and Miki glared at me.

"No, just something about a number that keeps coming up. It's no big deal."

"You'll let me know if it becomes a big deal?"

"Just get better. Let me worry about the voices in my head."

"Have they started answering you yet?" He chuckled rustily. "That's the first sign of insanity…or a ghost hack. Take your pick."

"No." _But they do talk to each other._ "I'll see you in a couple of days." I waved as I left, running into the same nurse.

"Bye Batou."

"How did you…" She smiled at me, than turned away. _Maybe I need a tune-up. Or a dog._

**A/N:** Hope everyone had a great week! See ya later. -TK


	3. Remnants

**Disclaimer: **As always, I do not own GITS, any of the venues, or any of the characters. They belong to Shirow Masamune. I write fanfic only for entertainment value, and to improve on my writing skills. I hope you enjoy.

**Chapter 3: Remnants**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

I noticed it had rained as I pulled out of the parking garage. The lights glittered on the road like spirits twinkling out of view at the rising of the sun. The wet roads gave a false impression of slickness, and I chuckled as my tires caught on the pavement of the entrance ramp to I-9.

I like driving in the rain, it gives me time to think. There aren't normally a lot of drivers out at this time of night, and the rain deters most of those. It's a good time to think through events, try to make sense of those things that don't quite fit into place.

This morning Aramaki and I had a discussion about the Major's return. He explained about the loss of contact. I didn't handle it well, we argued viciously. Why didn't Motoko at least drop me a line? That's not like her.

So the last thing I remember, of before she disappeared, is the Major telling me she needed to dive into the PuppetMaster's mind to understand what he knew.

_ "He said he'd been watching me. I need to know what he means."  
"Why?"  
"Because I feel he knows whether I'm real or not."  
"Those brain cells in your brain box say that you're human. You're just being irrational."  
Then I saved her from a heavily armored Fuchikoma, she was in bad shape. _"What happened next Batou?"

My voice brought me out of my trance and I realized I was outside of Tokyo on my way to Kyoto. I turned the car around and started back. The gas gauge was just at ¾ tank, I had plenty to get home. "I woke up in the Hardware Unit at Section 9. They were putting me back together." _But what of the brain box I rescued? That must have been when they put her in a different body and sent her into Section 6 to clean up. But why does that feel so wrong?_

I decided since it was so late, I would just stay at my safe-house. I went in and sat down in my chair, beer in one hand and remote in the other. I never turn it on, but it must be a guy thing to want to hold the remote. Much like naming our dicks.

I must have dozed off. The alarm ringing startled me. As I focused around me, snippets of my dream filtered back through my mind.

_ "The keys are in the pocket, the code is"  
"2501"  
"Yes."  
Deceptively young eyes looked at me. "Let that be our password whenever we meet."_ _The door closed behind her and she was gone._

"I need to lay off the beer." I started coffee and went in to take a shower.

ssssss

Halfway to the office, my car phone rang. "Batou speaking." Motoko's face appeared on the screen.

"We have a new assignment, Aramaki wants to meet with us in 45 minutes."

"Okay." I'd already looked away to focus on the road.

"Batou…"

"Mmm" I looked back to see concerned eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, why?"

"Your cyberlink is off-line. That's why I called your car phone." She was tapping the side of her head and frowning.

"I was wondering about that since this phone isn't on an ultra-secure line."

"So, are you?"

"I'm fine Motoko." Silence hung on the line. "Can I ask you a question?"

"No, I'm not PMS'ing, and yes, you're acting VERY strange." I smiled, she sounded normal for the first time since she came back.

"Not exactly what I was thinking. Do you ever wear your hair up?"

"What kind of question is that?" She frowned again, making a ridge between her eyes form.

"Are you going to answer me?"

"I rarely wear my hair up. That's one of the reasons why I like the body I have, short hair." She ran a hand over the edge of her hair.

"What do you hold it up with?"

"Batou, where is this going?"

"Do you use ribbons?"

"No. I usually pull it back and use clips to keep it from falling forward."

"Okay, thanks."

"Batou…" Even without looking, I could tell she was tapping a foot in agitation.

"Yes?"

"I want you to get an analysis run when you arrive. I'm not sure your blackout left you unaffected."

_I agree, that's when my ghost started whispering to me._ "I'm fine."

"It wasn't a request."

What could I say? Before I had time to reword my instinctive response, she disconnected. _My cyberlink is off huh?_ I walked through my optional functions and reflagged it. _Not sure when THAT happened, but it did. _"Clips huh?" I reached into my pocket and pulled out a dark green ribbon. _It matched the eyes._ "Who would I have trusted enough to let into my safe-house?" _Only Kusanagi._ I put it back in my jacket, sure that when I figured it out, I would be able to unravel the mystery of why I'd been feeling so uneasy.

**A/N:** Sorry I didn't get this posted last night. Went out for a family dinner and came back with food poisoning, never got near the keyboard (shrug). Hope everyone had a great week, and I'll probably update Thur/Fri.-TK


	4. ATTACK!

**Disclaimer: **Shirow Masamune owns the rights to GITS and all it's iterations. I own the rights to any free thought that comes out of my mind. However, since I am borrowing his characters to exhibit these thoughts, I may receive no material value for this work. I do take payment in the form of reviews, they're free, and good for the soul (even the flames). Please enjoy.

**Chapter 4: ATTACK!**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

Doctor Akai gave me yet another inspection, and I was again cleared for duty. Today was going to be busy. As the second day back at Section 9, we had a lot of cleanup to do. Sure the androids had cleaned the floors that had been converted to a battlefield; but there was a mountain of data recovery and organization to be done as a result of the dark ops team rifling through our data banks.

None of us really felt like talking, the impact of the hell we'd just been through still weighing heavily on our minds. Ishikawa took a break around 2pm and came over to bug the piss out of me. I really couldn't blame him. I'd spent the day working on fixing our physical security systems and the Major spent it fixing firewalls and protection programs. Ishikawa had the complex task of re-establishing all links and syncs that had been severed during the attempt to cover up Section 9's exposure of a higher political game.

I was leaned over a thermal incendiary device, hands gently maneuvering firing mechanisms back into place, when a large hand clamped down on my shoulder. After I finally got my heart put back in my body, I turned to glare at the offender.

Ishikawa crossed his hands over his chest and shuffled his feet. "Geesh, stop already. I was working on linking in this area and knew you were in that machine. I disabled it before I came down here."

Optic implants are NOT effective at displaying great emotion. "You fuckwad, I'm damned glad that you did disable it, BUT I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!" I looked back at my right hand, the only real part of me left. It was trembling too greatly to resume my task. "When you get ready to leave, be sure to step over the puddle at my feet." My only satisfaction was in watching him do a double-check to see if I was telling the truth. When he realized I'd lied, he turned and walked out, hands in his pockets and whistling some pachinko tune slightly off key.

sssss

Just like ants, we didn't get to rest very long. Less than twenty hours after we got all of the systems online, we were back out on duty. Thursday faked us out by starting like a normal day. I was working out in the training room, still trying to prove to myself that Megatech's physical strength capability number was only a guideline. Saito and Pazu were both running diagnostics on various cyberware they had recently installed to upgrade their internal systems, and Boma and Ishikawa were both hooked into the net looking for trouble.

I had just gotten 400lbs above my head, no mean feat if you consider one of my arms is still flesh, when the Major came over my cyberlink.

(I need everyone to assemble in the ready room immediately, there has been a level 2 event.)

I had dropped the weight in surprise when she linked in, and it was sitting very uncomfortably on my chest. After getting it back on the bar…okay I cheated, I pushed it off of me with my cyber arm, then picked it up with the same arm and put it back on the rack…I headed upstairs. Everyone was assembled, and no one except smart-ass Ishikawa even appeared to notice my sweats. He just raised an eyebrow before turning back to Aramaki.

"Batou, we have just received a report on an explosion at the Palace of the Prime Minister. We suspect it is linked to the recent reappointment of the PM's cabinet. Now you're caught up with the rest of the team." He took a deep breath before starting in again. His voice authorative enough for us to realize the seriousness of the situation. "Boma, I need you to work the van while Pazu investigates. Ishikawa, I want you here looking into things. Saito, provide cover for everyone, and Major…" He looked at me for an unblinking moment. "Take Batou. Keep him out of trouble." Everyone was dismissed to head off on our assignments.

Motoko is specifically enthralled with sky jumps. Although I'm not a huge fan of heights, I'm by no means terrified of them. That's how I found myself hanging out the door of the chopper and dropping her on to the roof of the scraper closest to the PM's palace. I could see Saito on the roof of a smaller building and Pazu and Boma had just arrived with the van. The Major turned to make eye contact, her purple hair blowing in the gust from the choppers. I gave her a thumbs-up, and the chopper was out of there.

Although I'm okay at stealth, that's Motoko's forte. I'm better known for my sheer firepower while Saito provides the precision work. I don't worry about precision as much as making sure all the bastards are dead. I think Saito gets off on making them sweat the next shot.

By the time we landed and I had gotten out of the chopper with my heat, the Major had secured the area and was standing at the opened gate, one hip cocked saucily. "Took you long enough."

"Sorry, I had to stop by grandma's house to drop off a pie." She grinned and we started into the compound.

The PM's compound is a maze of buildings. Like the streets of Washington DC, the PM's residence was designed to confuse visitors and provide a safety net by requiring intruders to wind in and around in order to get to the important buildings. As we reached the bombed out building, which had housed the security staff, we heard Pazu enter the compound. He was distracting the guards by trying to obtain press access, while we walked through the building.

(Explosive residue, type RDX-4) Motoko was bent down looking at a smear on the wall.

(Yeah, took out three mecha suits and two security personnel on this side) I was standing on the other side of the wall that had been destroyed.

(They're dead?)

I took a second sweep. (Completely off-line)

(Boma, Pazu, give us about three more minutes, we're just about done.)

(Roger Major)

(Batou, what do you think they were after?)

I was walking around the perimeter of the other room, using my foot to move body parts and other light objects to see if there was anything underneath. (I'm not sure, but there's an outline of a box on the wall right here. The explosion blacked the area, but there's a box-shaped clean spot. I'm guessing that was their target.)

(Ishikawa, see what you can find out about high-level documents being stored at the PM's security facility.)

(Will do Major.) I could almost see Ishikawa's finger's furiously typing as he started delving into the darker sections of the net.

I turned over a desk, making sure we had everything, when that ever pervasive voice came back. (_RUN!_) Not thinking twice, I jumped through the hole in the wall and grabbed Motoko around the waist, pulling her out of the building.

"Batou, what the hell…" She didn't get any further before we started getting strafed by sniper fire.

(Saito, what the fuck!) I didn't know where it was coming from, but it was heavy ammo. I could hear the sounds of ejecting shells ricocheting off of the buildings. (That's no .375, that's a Martin-Henry or a .585 Nyati round!)

(Guys, get the hell out of there, I've just located the shooter, and it's a tank. I'll do what I can, but get out now!) Saito started shooting at the direction the bullets were coming from.

We ran for the gate, doing our best to keep something solid between us and that monster. Saito was yelling out directions the entire time. As we rounded the corner, Pazu drove up and Boma reached out, pulling both of us into the vehicle without slowing down. We could hear the security personnel running towards the scene, but we could provide no assistance with the meager heat we packed.

"What happened back there?" Boma was the best at keeping us calm. No 'what the fuck' drama. Just "What happened?" I couldn't say what prompted it, but it made me laugh. I howled as everyone looked at me as if I was crazy. We'd stopped and picked up Saito a block over before I could stop.

"What's his deal?" Everyone shrugged and Saito waited along with the others for me to crack, or explain.

"We just about got our asses wiped by a thermoptically camouflaged mecha tank, and all Boma can say is…'What happened?'" I smacked Boma on the shoulder. "You're always so calm. It just rubbed me the right way this time, I found it to be cosmically ironic."

I can't say everyone understood me, but at least the Major smiled. We were back at Section 9 before anyone could think of anything else to say.

**A/N:** Hope everyone had a great week! See ya later. -TK


	5. Pachinko Comeback

**Disclaimer:** Ghost in the Shell belongs to Shirow Masamune. Beer belongs to the world. Hope you enjoy my non-profit deviation into the time between one and two of the movies.

**Chapter 5: Pachinko Comeback**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

After we filed our reports, Aramaki sent us home for the evening. Deciding I wasn't quite ready to call it a night, I stopped at the Ishikawa Pachinko Palace and played a couple of pounds worth of virtual balls. I was having an uncommon amount of luck when a hand landed on my shoulder.

"Sir, we're going to have to ask you to leave." I stopped the game and took off my visor to look at the guard. A thin middle-aged man with shaggy light brown hair stared back at me, a shit-eating grin on his face. I stood and grabbed him in a bear hug.

"So you're finally off house arrest huh?" I looked around. "Of all the two-bit casinos in all the two-bit towns…

"It's Thursday. Poker night." Togusa held a six-pack of beer and a bag of pretzels. "Ishikawa said we were betting light tonight, so I brought snacks." He looked at me. "You coming?"

"Of course." I followed him upstairs and enjoyed watching Ishikawa's face as he answered the door.

I could tell he had not really expected company tonight. He had a ratty white wife-beater on over a pair of frayed boxers. His normally kempt beard was scruffy looking and his hair needed a quickie with a comb. As he saw Togusa, his face was split by a scary grin. "Togusa! You actually showed up. I figured since you had just gotten out of the hospital, you'd have more pressing things to do.

"Well, we did the pressing things until we just couldn't keep it up. Now we've been sent off to play poker with the boys as a way of getting us out of bed." Togusa blinked innocently and Ishikawa laughed hard as he ushered him in.

As he went to shut the door I put a hand out and stopped him. "Mind if I join?"

Ishikawa just stood there for a second. I'd never even seemed interested in poker. They'd invited me for over a year, and I'd turned them down every time. Suddenly he backed up. "Sure, you're always invited on poker night," he grinned maliciously. "Especially if you bring beer and cash." I entered and he shut the door behind us.

"I thought it was single-yen night." Togusa was already sitting at the table, a pile of pretzels and an open beer in front of him.

"It is, but I'm thinking Batou has some catch-up to do. We might make him play dollar exchange rate."

"Fine with me, I just won thirty thousand yen off of you downstairs. I can afford to lose a little."

"Thirty thousand?" Ishikawa was counting in his head. "Not too bad, I'll let you play single-yen with us this time. If you'd won forty though, all bets would be off."

The current exchange rate is about a hundred yen to the dollar. That means I walked away with about $300 in credit. I could cash that in at an exchange booth, but I occasionally like to play the game, it's mind-numbing.

"So, what's this I hear about a big op today?" Togusa had gotten up to retrieve another beer from the fridge. Our cyborg bodies might metabolize beer, making it harmless to us; but Togusa had no such weapon. Because of it, he drank a beer an hour to keep himself on a level playing field with his buddies. He told me once that on single-yen night, he got to splurge and have two an hour.

The reason I'd never joined poker night is because when I'm not at work, I don't like to think about work. I'm always available for emergency call-in, that's a requirement of the job, but I like my time away from work to be exactly that…time AWAY from work. So tonight I find myself playing single-yen poker with my co-workers, talking about…work.

Ishikawa put thirty yen in to match my bid. "Yeah, what the hell happened there at the end?"

"There was a fucking tank parked outside the building we were in. I don't know when it showed up, but it had TOC and we never saw it until it started blasting the hell out of our position. It had to be packing .577-450 Martin-Henry shells, or .585 Nyati's. It was blasting human sized holes in the buildings."

"Shit!" Togusa blinked at me. "Were you scared?"

I popped a pretzel before answering. "I didn't have time to be scared. Like I said, it was trying to help us find the River Styx before I ever saw it."

Ishikawa leaned forward, suddenly making a mental connection. "You never saw it? Then how did you know to get out of there?"

"I was told to run, so I did." I laid down a full house and waited to see if there was a royal flush.

Both guys had suddenly forgotten we were playing cards and were now staring at me. "Who told you to run?"

"Kusanagi."

Togusa put a pretzel in his mouth, crunching it without though. "The Major?"

"Yeah."

"Then why didn't she run out on her own?" Ishikawa reached over and grabbed a handful of pretzels, sticking one in his mouth like a cigarette. "She stated clearly in her report that she was still searching for evidence when you grabbed her around the waist and carried her out of the building like a sack of rice."

"I thought she had frozen after sending me the warning."

Ishikawa looked at me very seriously. "Nope. I'd think you are starting to hear voices, but I've suspected you've turned schizo for a while now."

"If it wasn't the Major, who was it?" Togusa glared at Ishikawa as his hand edged back over to the bag of pretzels. "Get your own, dammit!"

Ishikawa stood to get another beer. "I don't know, sounds like Batou has a guardian angel."

I grunted in acknowledgement. I hadn't been able to come up with a better solution.

ssssss

By 10pm, Togusa was dead to the world. I guess two beers on top of painkillers was more than his little body could handle. Ishikawa helped me get him in the car and I drove him home. When I arrived at his house, Miki was none too pleased to see her husband getting poured out of my car and being carried into the house. Although I'd talk trash to her if he were awake, that was a line I would never cross while he was unconscious. I just shrugged my shoulders. "Guess that warning about 'don't drink while taking this medicine' is true." At her worried look, I walked into the house and followed her to the bedroom, laying him gently on the mattress and pretending not to be jealous as she tenderly tucked him in and kissed his forehead.

"He really wasn't up to going out tonight, but I could tell he was beginning to have cabin fever. The doctor put him on limited movement, restricting anything he could do here to alleviate the boredom." A blush bloomed on her cheeks and I realized that Togusa had lied about his earlier 'exercise' as a way of fooling us into believing he was in better shape than he really was. "I didn't know he was going to stop on the way and pick up beer." She turned and looked at me, a worry line puckering the area between her friendly eyes.

"It was just a couple of beers, early in the evening. Two light beers won't do anything to him except make him wish he'd followed the warning on the medicine bottle."

She looked at me, really looked at me. "I guess you'd know. You became a cyborg one body part at a time."

"Not totally, more like over two or three times." I pulled her close, providing a strong comforting shoulder. "He's going to be okay. But he needed tonight in order for him to realize that he's going to be okay." She hugged me tightly, finally daring to believe, before pushing away and wiping tears from her cheeks.

"I guess so." She chuckled wetly and walked me back to the door.

**A/N:** Do you hate this story? I am beginning to think so. But then, no flames means it's either too bad to bother, or too boring and everyone who reads it is in a coma. Either way, if you've made it this far, thank you. Hope you have a great week, and I'll talk at you again next week. -TK


	6. Lost Dreams

**Disclaimer:** Shirow Masamune has the rights to these characters. I just send them off in strange directions for my own perverse pleasure. Before anyone asks, Nizuki and Julian Blane are mine.

**Chapter 6: Lost Dreams**

A/N: Excerpt from Robert Frost's "Desert Places."

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

As I drove home, thoughts whirred through my head like the traffic on the streets. Since it wasn't after midnight, and the sky was cheerfully clear, every Tom, Dick, and Larry was out cruising the asphalt. The overhead lights glinted off the dashboard and sent tiny ocular impulses to my brain. I'd learned to tune them out years ago, like the thoughts running through my mind. However, the thoughts were sneaky and had a way of breaking through my firewalls.

So I'll admit I'm jealous of Togusa. I'm jealous of his house, I'm jealous of his progeny, I'm even jealous of his station wagon. But mostly I'm jealous of his Mrs. Togusa. Oh, I don't want Miki herself. I want a Mrs. Batou for my very own. A woman who would tuck me into bed and kiss my cheek when I've had too much to drink.

At one time I thought I might have been able to have that; but the fates wove other plans. Now I spend my time waiting on a sign from a higher being who has apparently forgotten I exist. Oh I'm not talking about God. He's up there all right, laughing at all of my antics and sighing at my wild musings.

But as Robert Frost wrote, 'I am too absent-spirited to count; the loneliness includes me unawares.' Strange how a man who died before the first cyborg was born, could so clearly pen our basic fears that we lose our souls to the machines the allow us to exist.

It was a lovely spring day and Nizuki was walking beside me on our way to an eiga, a movie. I always put her on the inside, away from the street. I had foolishly thought I could protect her better if I was closer to the road.

We'd met the summer before at the University. She was just finishing up her work in Tech Integration Studies and I'd been invited to speak at a seminar about the uses of cyberization in the public safety sector.

I'd met the professor, Julian Blane, during a security conference in the states. We'd kept in touch and when he'd been transferred to Tokyo as a 'modern topics' instructor, he'd looked me up to speak.

I was standing behind the podium, discussing the different options of cyberizing a human, when I looked up into wide brown eyes. In my work, seeing normal colored eyes is rare, so brown eyes always stand out to me. She took few notes, seeming to get more out of my talk by listening to me.

Although she wasn't extraordinary in body, the normal Japanese build and straight black hair, her eyes spoke volumes. They tightened in humor as something I said caught her attention. They widened in excitement as I described the process of transplanting machine into man. They even closed once. Not in sleep, as I'd assumed; but in contemplation.

After the conference, she came up to me and asked several well-thought questions. One was to ask if I had cyber implants myself. At my affirmative, she asked if she could see them, and I replied that would require us to be somewhere MUCH more private. As she blushed ten shades of red and started to walk off, I grabbed her hand.

"I was just kidding." I swept my long ponytail out of the way, exposing the back of my neck where I'd been cyberized. I'd like to say that I could feel the gentle touch of her fingers on my connections, but that area had no nerves, part of the cyberization process.

"Did it hurt?" She had removed her hand and was again focused on my eyes. The real ones, not these implants that make me look like Arnold Schwartzeneger dressed as John Lennon. I'm not sure, but I seem to remember they were grey.

"I don't remember. There are certain aspects to undergoing this process that are very nice. The ability to have my memories altered to exclude things like pain and suffering is one of them."

"Must be nice." Her eyes shimmered for one instant with sadness.

"Yeah, but in ways it dehumanizes me. I've become much more reckless because I know if I get hurt badly, I can just have my recovery wiped."

She shuddered. "I see what you mean. I'd rather experience the depths of agony so I could better enjoy the good times. I mean, regardless of how bad it is, at the click of fingers on a keyboard, you can start all over, never remembering how bad it was so you can have a reference to measure against the good."

And that is why I chose not to erase my memories of her. Because she understood more about life than I did although she was only twenty to my thirty-six.

That started the golden period of my life. "If I'd known it was going to be my only one, I would have held on tighter, filed every second away for minute inspection. A golden shrine to be taken out and gingerly handled before being polished carefully and put away until the next time." If only I'd known a terrorist bomb would end it before I had come to realize what we had.

Of course, I never would have met Kusanagi if it hadn't been for that explosion. She was the officer sent out to investigate the call. She was closer to the bomb, but the shrapnel missed her and hit us instead.

I remember waking up in a white room with lots of beeping noises and hushed talking. I'd always suspected Hell was run by a man in a white lab coat. Before the accident, I had no idea how close to the truth I'd been. I had a splitting headache and could swear my eyes were looking in two completely different directions.

"Doctor, I believe he's awake." One of Satan's more shapely minions was leaning over me, giving me a full frontal view of things I would never be allowed to touch at this level of Hell.

"Oh Good!" A bright light was shining in my eyes. "How do you feel?"

"Like a chameleon in Hell."

"Why's that?" He was writing in his book and not really paying attention to what I was saying.

"Because I'm looking in two different directions. Like a chameleon."

He snapped his tablet shut and leaned back over. "We'll, let's see if we can fix that." I heard something click in the back of my neck, and hands typing furiously on a keyboard. "Hmmm, might explain the headache, you're not aligned properly." A few more clicks and suddenly both of my eyes were looking at the same object, acting normally."

"What the hell happened to me?"

"Do you remember the explosion?"

Suddenly I knew.

"What about Nizuki?" I saw him look over at a nurse and her shake her head. Everything slowed down exponentially at that instant.

I remember shouting "NOOOOO!" at the same time a horrifying scream started in the next room over.

It wasn't until days later that I remembered the screaming and thought to ask about the other soul suffering in Hell with me. Much later I learned that she didn't have any recollection of the screaming; but that wasn't surprising. They would have wiped that memory without even asking permission. No one wants to remember the instant they learn they've lost their humanity.

**A/N:** I started to look up the backstory on Batou, but realized that in order to learn Batou's background, I'd have to spoil 2nd Gig for myself. Since I enjoy getting on the AS forum and shooting the breeze with other fans, I decided it was better to pull something out of my brain instead. So, if you've seen 2nd Gig and this doesn't match with it, PLEASE don't correct me. This fic is based on the movies anyways, so the series' backstory doesn't really matter.

Also, thank you to the folks that reviewed. I was really becoming worried that I was leaving little corpses all over the place with my writing. Glad to know that there are people out there who haven't died of boredom and are looking for updates. Take care all. -TK


	7. Kusanagi Memories

**Disclaimer:** As always, Shirow Masamune, not Twiknham. I just enjoy making them dance to my tune. So, the tune is mine, the dancers are SM's. Enjoy.

**Chapter 7: Kusanagi Memories**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

Kusanagi and I were both police officers with Tokyo Public Safety Section 5. Part of the paperwork we'd signed stated that if we were to ever obtain life-threatening injuries, we were to be given whatever was available to sustain our lives, including experimental procedures. That's how I initially ended up in bed with a fake torso and legs.

Within three weeks of the accident, they'd had to replace most of my body with cyborg components. My eyes had sustained major injuries when shrapnel had flown into them, and the shock blast had destroyed the bone structure in three of my four extremities. These parts were replaced immediately. My chest was a mixture of real bone and fake ribs and once they realized my body had started necrosis on the remaining parts, they finished the replacement job; keeping my right arm as a gift for the loss of the rest of my body.

When I woke up from the second set of surgeries, I was no longer alone in my room. It had been a big empty room, now it was a big room that held another pseudo-corpse. After several days of looking at people pass through the curtains drawn around the bed next to mine, I finally learned that another officer, in another division, had been in the explosion. I also learned that the total count of fatalities was 83 and two officers had been killed. One in the line of duty, and one out on a date with his girlfriend. That meant I was a dead man, with no history to go back to. Since Nizuki had been killed instantly when a piece of the trunk sliced through her skull, my past was exactly that, the past.

Kusanagi hadn't been as fortunate as myself. The bomb had been in the trunk of the car and she had been walking up to it when it exploded. The glass that took out my eyes missed her completely. However, when they found her, the frame of the car was sitting on her abdomen. The doctors later stated that the wreckage had worked as a tourniquet, cutting off the blood loss and keeping her alive.

Since the emergency workers couldn't remove her from the wreckage without killing her, a specialist was called to consult. He said it was a risky maneuver, but there was a small window of opportunity if they could remove the car at the instant they pulled her body out and then immediately seal the wounds by cauterizing them. That was only to get her to the hospital, where she could die under sedation.

He didn't tell the emergency volunteers that his team had been waiting for a fatally wounded victim from the military sector to try a new procedure on. The team he headed had developed a method of removing the brain and part of the spinal column and transplanting it into a containment unit that would then act as a translation device between the brain and a cyborg body. This unit would later become known as a 'brain box.' Since her signature was an implied consent, and her chance of survival outside of this procedure was zero, it was decided to attempt the surgery.

There had been many unsuccessful surgeries before then, the first one had occurred almost five years earlier. The brain had rejected the materials used in the making of the box and had lived almost two minutes after it had been implanted. Each time a failure happened, the doctors analyzed the causes and improved the system. The last time the procedure had been performed, the new shell opened its eyes and spoke. The doctors all gathered around, astonished that their procedure was a success. Two days later, the cyborg told them to let him die, and quit breathing. An autopsy revealed his brain had hardened due to an imbalance in the chemicals it was being provided.

The man who performed that ghost-box operation was named Dr. Logan Honshuu. He spent months researching the correct chemical makeup and was sure the next surgery would be a success, if the person was willing to accept the body. He would later win professional notoriety for the first successful brain/cyborg transplant. Only a handful of people knew that his 'groundbreaking' surgery had actually been his third success. The first two had been top-secret military operations; but he couldn't advertise the fact he'd brought two dead people back to life when they didn't exist.

When he heard that there was another candidate, he called Megatech and got a release for the latest shell. When the candidate arrived, he called Megatech and changed the gender. I wouldn't know all of this, but I had a LOT of time in the hospital to ask questions of this brain trust. Since I was also a cyborg, they didn't mind telling me. Kusanagi never asked for the details. She was more interested in her future than her past.

ssssss

My first memory of seeing Kusanagi is blurry at best. I'd just come out of my second surgery, having finally undergone the brain box transformation myself. There was a lithe naked body lying on the bed next to mine, and I was sure angels had come to claim my soul. I was actually a little relieved to know I was going that direction, surely Satan wouldn't waste someone so lovely on my sorry ass. I blinked and when I came to, there was a white curtain and more of the same…nothing.

Drugs do strange things to the time/space continuum. Just as I was beginning to believe I'd suddenly become trapped on a mobius strip, time hiccup'd and I found myself sharing the same clock as the rest of the world. Days passed as days, and minutes because as truly finite as before. One night I was sleeping heavily, having spent the day being tortured by surgeons, when I heard the voice.

"Hello? Am I alone?" (hello?)

I didn't realize until days later that the woman beside me had automatically linked.

"No, you're not alone."

"Where are you?"

"I'm trapped in this damned bed on the other side of the curtain."

A shaking hand peeked through the curtain and a very mechanical movement later, the curtain was thrust aside and we were looking at each other. "Hello."

"Hi, I had begun to wonder if they were keeping the curtain closed just to tease me into insanity." She smiled, not big, but a smile. It was nice to see a friendly face. "I'm Batou."

"I'm not sure who I am right now." She started to fade out.

"That's okay. I'll be here when you figure it out."

When the nurse came in, she started to close the curtain; but I reached out a hand and stopped her. "The lady opened it, she said she'd like to see another human. I know I'm not a lot to look at, but you have to admit I'm better than a white curtain." She smiled and left the curtain cracked.

"Okay, but I'm not giving you a peep show. You keep your eyes on her face, the rest of her body is her business."

If that nurse had only known Kusanagi. She didn't care who saw her business...

I was asleep the next time she surfaced. (Wake up.) I blinked, focusing on her purple eyes.

"Morning." She moved a hand up to rest beside her head, it shook as if she had a bad case of palsy. "Mine did the same thing until they got the servo units sync'd with my body."

"Good, I was beginning to think I was the lead in the next Katharine Hepburn story."

I chuckled, a rusty sound. I hadn't had much to laugh about since I came here. "I'm Batou, if you don't remember."

"I remember. I just don't remember my name yet."

"That's normal. You will though." The voice startled both of us, and we looked at the white suit standing between the beds. "I need to talk to you both for a few…hold on, let me get a chair."

My ears worked fine, and the sound of metal feet scraping on tile was not pleasant. The lady beside me obviously felt the same way, although she hadn't quite figured out how to control her features. There was a tear running down one cheek and half of her face had squinched while the other side did not.

"I'm Dr. Honshuu, it's a pleasure to talk to both of you. As you probably already know, you were victims of the explosion in Odaiba. Batou lost his eyes and several body parts. However, he did manage to escape with no damage to his brain and spinal column." The girl beside me rolled her eyes, it was a panicked motion. The doctor lightly touched the exposed hand, gaining her attention. "In some ways, you're in better shape than Batou. We couldn't save your body, but we saved your brain and the top three vertebrae of your spine. You have been transplanted into a new body. In fact," we could tell he was excited by his tone of voice. "You are the first full cyborg to exist!"

He later told me that she wasn't technically the first cyborg to exist, the guy who was alive for 3 days was the first one. However, she'd been the first successful one and he didn't want to do anything to make her question her existence. Little did he understand that being alive and having an existence are not related, and one has to wonder if the quality of existence is not more important than the quantity of the same.

Dr. Honshuu made a habit of stopping by and talking with us every evening before he left. The entire first night he spent explaining the procedure used to turn us into cyborgs. He started with an explanation of how our brains were turned into miniature computers, than he went on to explain how motion was controlled by synaptic energy from the brain that went through electrical centers in the body and was turned into commands used to start subroutines in the body.

He explained that we would have to train our bodies to perform to the level demanded of us, that they would start out jerky and slow; and he put clear emphasis on making sure we understood that if we became frustrated with our lack of motor functions, it would slow down our progress.

Later we would tease each other with that statement every time we were unable to perform even the simplest task. I never understood how complicated it was to button a shirt, or tie a shoe. Something that a toddler can learn became excruciating for the adults. Years later I learned that the techniques used to teach us were the same techniques used to teach stroke victims how to learn these skills. Later generations of cyborgs were programmed using the commands we'd developed, eliminating the need for rehab; so we really got to experience it from the ground up.

When we weren't in rehab, learning how to use our bodies, we were in training to learn how to use our minds. Kusanagi had never been cyberized, so she had a steeper learning curve. Unfortunately, I suspect that my prior cyberization is the reason why she was always much more adept at cyber-diving and doing the more sophisticated things she did. Because I already had a set idea about how the mind worked, I subconsciously put self-imposed limits on my abilities. I had heard that this couldn't be done, or that wasn't possible; so I basically caused a self-realized prophecy condition. Because I had heard the future, I actually made it come true.

Kusanagi had no such barriers in her mind. She was the first full cyborg; therefore, she had no preconceived ideas on what could be done. The first week I kicked her butt, ran through all the mental mazes they provided, and let pride get the best of me on more than one occasion. The second week started out the same, but I could tell she was getting angry. Not at herself for her limitations, but at me for my attitude. She told me later that if she'd known how to do a round-house, she'd have taken my head off before lunch on Tuesday. However, the only way to beat me was to shut me out.

We were both working in a dummy net, a fake internet set up to allow us to dive without being infected by hackers or tagged by protection programs. Since we were both basically infants, we did not know the tricks to stay safe. We were both maneuvering through chat rooms, with several windows open in our minds. Physically I was rattling on about how easy it was for me to get through the gates. I was actually bragging about how I'd purposely decided to take a more difficult route just to slow me down, and I'd still beaten her. She was talking too; but it wasn't much, and she wasn't looking at me.

Suddenly she rolled her eyes over to glare at me. (Shut the fuck up already!)

Kusanagi rarely used the F word. It startled me a little, but I continued to talk. I'll admit that sometimes I'm not to most intelligent person in the room.

(If you don't shut up, I'll shut you up.)

That time I realized her mouth wasn't moving. "How did you…"

Suddenly the room was dead silent. I was staring into those piercing eyes, my mouth opening but no sound coming out. My voice controls were no longer working.

(That's much better. Now, if you are done, how about you come back in here and help me figure out how to reroute the system to shut out the techs.)

(Uh..oh, okay) To this day I'll never know if she gave me the power to link back, or if I automatically learned it as a result of knowing she could do it. I don't mind being the first into a room, guns blazing; but Kusanagi has ALWAYS led any advancements we made as cyborgs. I look at an option and balk because it's never been done. She looks at an option and does it because its never been done. Then she finds a way to taunt me. It's been years of 'you may have gone the more difficult route to show me up ONCE, but here's ANOTHER freebie for you…'

Two minutes later, she gave me my voice back, and on the other side of the window three techs were locked out of their controls. Gotta give the girl credit, she always did get things done.

**A/N:** Just like Batou, I've made up a history on Motoko. I've not read the manga, so it may be completely wrong. Hope you're enjoying this, and I will bug you again next week. -TK


	8. Section 1: WRECKAGE

**Disclaimer: **I do not own GITS in any shape or form. And although I would like my own personal Tachikoma, I'm also aware that they are the brainchildren of Shirow Masamune and that I have no rights to anything related to GITS. However, I do enjoy weaving a tale or two with his creations. Enjoy.

**Chapter 8: Section 1, Wreckage**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

(Batou…where have you wandered?) I blinked and realized my phone was ringing.

"Batou speaking."

"Aramaki here. Why is your link down? We've been trying to reach you for over an hour."

I looked at my watch while I quickly went through my menus, turning the link back on. Another 'I don't know why my link was disabled,' and I'm in the doctor's chair again. "Sorry, I was taking care of some 'personal' business."

The old man harrumphed on the phone and I'm not sure if it's because he didn't believe me, or because he did. "There's been another attack, the main security building at Section 1. The team is already there. I need you to meet them."

"Are they under heavy fire?" I keep two Zastaba and plenty of ammo in my car. After getting caught once without enough heat to protect my partner, I never leave home without them.

"No, they just need your disarmament abilities, they are cleaning house."

"So I missed all the action huh?"

Aramaki chuckled and I suddenly realized I'd been caught in my own lie. "Apparently so." I was already on my way to Section 1 before he spoke again. "And stop back by Dr. Akai's before leaving for the night."

Damn, it's already 4:30am. By the time I get to go home, I'll be late for work. Good thing I don't need much sleep.

ssssss

When I arrived at Section 1, everyone was there except for Togusa. Boma nodded sagely while Pazu and Saito barely looked up from their tasks. I wasn't left to wonder what they were thinking for long.

"Where the hell have you been?" The Major sauntered through the newly created doorway and stopped in front of me, hands crossed over her chest. "We tried to reach you for almost an hour."

"Sorry, I turned my link off, I needed a little private time."

(I thought something had happened to you, you've never turned a link off to me.)

(What good would it do, you'd only open it back up.)

"Huh." She turned and walked away, not answering.

Ishikawa came up and hit me on the back. "It's not fair to fight when we can't hear. We all enjoy a good show." (Did you get Togusa home okay?)

"Fuck you! I'm not fighting with the Major; and if I was, you can get your cheap thrills elsewhere." (Yeah, he's going to be okay.)

"Okay, well, if you're too good to entertain us, you can get to work. I have two unstable devices in the next room over, and the Major has three upstairs."

It was after nine when we finally secured the area. The raid had the earmark of being committed by the same group, but this one felt different. There had been no bombs placed around the building at the PM's place, this one had a total of seven. By the time I'd dismantled the last one, I felt like I'd been put through the ringer. Now I had to go to Section 9, to be put through a different kind of ringer.

ssssss

Aramaki was showing his age as he walked down the stairs to the table I was being examined on. His cane comes out more and more these days, and I'm sure several of us are worried about the future of our little band.

"Hello Batou, thank you for stopping by. I'm concerned about you, you haven't been yourself the last couple of weeks." He leaned forward on his cane to look me deeply in the eyes.

"You didn't give me much choice. For a second there, I was afraid you were going to say I wasn't acting normal. Then I'd suggest you get examined because I've never been exactly normal." I smiled, never expecting a reaction.

Aramaki's eyes crinkled. He rarely smiles. When he does, it's frightening. He walked over to Dr. Akai and they conversed for a few minutes. Satisfied, Aramaki walked back over.

"Quit turning off your link. It's the quickest way we can get in touch with you." He started up the stairs, but stopped. "Dr. Akai said there is nothing wrong with you, so I know you are turning it off on your own." He continued on his way.

"Chief…" He froze. "Can I come talk to you for a few minutes after this?" There was a pause, than his shoulders slumped and he nodded.

**A/N:** I know, a short chapter. But it just worked out that way. I hope everyone had a great week. I'll talk at ya next week. -TK


	9. The Chief

**Disclaimer:** As always. Not Mine. Shirow Masamune's. I gain nothing from this financially. I write so that my muse will let me sleep; and occasionally I get reviews, which light my day.

**Chapter 9: The Chief**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

The first time I met Aramaki, Kusanagi and I were working on crouch and run maneuvers. The basic, crouch behind a stationary object, then run to the next object and crouch behind it. Sounds like an easy task, but it makes tying shoes and buttoning shirts what they are...children's tasks. Getting an 1100kg body to behave reflexively is something that takes practice. The first day Kusanagi mastered the squat, but I beat her in the running. She's always been more agile than myself, and I'm sure this was no exception.

It was day two of C&R hell, and Kusanagi had mastered it. However, she was demanding I do it until I got it right. I'd spent most of the first day on my hands and knees, having mastered the 'crouch and fall onto hands' technique. She had figured out the precise point her center of gravity needed to be in order to crouch against the wall, and while I was still crawling around the corners, she was doing something out of an old special ops manual. I was green with envy.

The moment I laid eyes on our new Captain, I was trying to catch Kusanagi to strangle her. She was lightly jogging backwards, occasionally punctuating the statement by doing a backhand flip. When the hell she had time to learn that, I don't know; but it was an entire statement as to her abilities that she'd done so without instruction. I was reaching for her arm, as it was outstretched in preparation for another flip, and my vision caught a glint of light off of something shiny and silver. I turned and promptly fell on my face, taking in the strange view of an older man falling in the opposite direction as I headed down.

Of course he wasn't falling, it was my perception that was changing. Aramaki was standing stone still, hands in the pockets of a black felt jacket. He'd apparently been standing there for a while because he was shifting his weight to the opposite hip, something military personnel don't normally do unless they are motionless for extensive periods of time.

Kusanagi stopped as soon as I fell and walked over to help me up. "If you continue to reach for a mirage, you will never achieve your goal." I accepted her hand and as she pulled me up, she also noticed our visitor.

Dr. Honshuu called us over. "This is Daisuke Aramaki. He would like to talk with the both of you for a few moments." He bowed politely and left us to talk.

"May we sit?" He pointed at a table and three chairs and we all sat down. "Over the last six months, we have seen a rise in the numbers of cyber-related crimes. These crimes are not the garden variety crimes you used to deal with in Section 5."

At my raised eyebrow, he continued. "Oh yes, I know your backgrounds." He nodded at us. "You are Batou and you are Motoko Kusanagi. Although you both worked for Section 5, Batou worked with cyber intelligence and Kusanagi worked with counter-terrorism. I was actually talking with the majors of your departments about recruiting you before the explosion at Odaiba two months ago."

(We've been here for two months?) She never looked away from Aramaki.

(I didn't think it'd been that long. I guess a couple of surgeries really kills time for you.) I didn't either.

That was the first time I ever saw Aramaki smile. We both blinked. Although he's short even to Japanese standards, Aramaki commands the respect usually reserved for much taller men. I've seen people look past him and introduce themselves to the taller official thinking he was Aramaki. One of the reasons I think he garners such trust and respect is that he does not joke lightly. His sense of humor is very intricate and rarely requires a response. I've often thought that maybe he learned early that babies cried when he smiled, and so he never did. It makes his eyes crinkle up and his face look more skeletal than normal. As we both watched in carefully managed horror, he opened his mouth.

"You are both exceptionally advanced in your cyber-linking capabilities." He schooled his features and we went back to feeling comfortable with the man. "According to the papers, you're ghosts. You both died as a result of injuries sustained at Odaiba. Neither of you have families or loved ones who will miss you." He looked at me. "I was sorry to hear about your friend, I was told that the two of you were close."

Kusanagi did cut her eyes over to me at that, but then went back to minding her own business. Her tact is one of the many reasons I have allowed her into my soul.

"Section 9 will be an intricate part of stopping terrorism before it has a chance to impact officers at the level you yourself were at two months ago." He steepled his fingers, looking at us over the top of them. "I had already offered the lead job to Motoko Kusanagi before her untimely death." He looked over at her. "You may not remember, but I have signed documentation here if you would like to examine them." He pulled a file over that had been sitting to the side.

Kusanagi did not move to take the file. "There are pieces missing from my memories, but I do remember meeting you once before."

"Are you willing to honor your previous commitment? I will understand if you do not feel right doing so, considering all that has happened since."

"I will honor any commitment that I have made with you. I have memories of Security meetings in which I was a guard. At these meetings I heard about you and the forming Section 9. I am not sure that a young officer such as myself is the best person to lead this group of individuals, but I am willing to do my best."

"As the new leader of Section 9, you will need to put together a team."

"How long do I have?"

"As long as you need."

The two of them suddenly quit talking, or at least I couldn't hear them. An infinity of silence later, she started to speak again.

"I want Batou on my team. Our cyborg bodies make us much more impervious to damage. Knowing what I know about mine, I believe any member of our team that wasn't a cyborg could become a liability."

That was it. Over the next two years, the woman who had just become Major Motoko Kusanagi handpicked four more cyborgs. Two months later, she rescinded her initial statement and added a human to keep us from have a fatal weakness in our strengths. Cyborgs tend to think and react like machines in high pressure situations, true humans do not. Although Togusa is mostly sheltered from fire-fights, he has come through with sheer pluckiness, and that one trait that we can never again emulate…humanness.

ssssss

So now I stand in front of Captain Aramaki's door. It's currently closed, and I have no idea how to say what I want to say. I do not feel I am able to give the team what it deserves right now. I raise my hand to knock, but end up just lowering it. I am finding huge gaps in my memories that weren't there a couple of days ago and I'm worried I've become a liability. Again, my hand freezes just before knocking. I need to take a couple of days completely away from everyone to find out why my ghost keeps whispering to me.

Suddenly I find myself banging the door with my fist. I guess my body got tired of waiting on my mind.

"Come in Batou." I opened the door. Aramaki was standing and looking out over the city, his hands clasped behind his back. "I could hear you breathing outside my door. I felt like the principle waiting on the pupil to come in for our talk."

I stood there, ten thoughts running through my mind simultaneously. "What do you see when you look out that window?" That was not one of them.

"The forest."

I looked over at the giant painting of a forest beside his desk. "Like in that picture?"

He turned and looked. "No. That is only a picture of a tree." He pulled out his chair and sat down, waving me over to sit. "That picture reminds me that in order to protect the safety of the forest…" He waved at the window behind him, "I must never forget to examine every tree." We both sat in silence for a moment.  
"The hardest moments in my life have been ones in which I've had to make tough decisions in order to protect those most affected by them." He leaned forward, spearing me with his eyes. "Like the time I had to risk the lives of my team in order to protect them. However, they are not the toughest moments in my life. The toughest moments in my life are when I sit down across from an individual that is dealing with a crisis."  
"Six years ago, I sat across the table from two individuals who were facing a crisis. They were the only ones of their kind, and their kind required extensive maintenance and replacement on a regular basis. They were also facing an extinction of another kind. The kind of extinction that happens when we no longer have a purpose for existing. I sat there sweating under my coat, hoping they would make the correct decision. They didn't disappoint me then, and I do not worry about being disappointed now.  
I wanted to pace, but Aramaki was as cool as ice. "I want to know what is going on. I am of the hope that you still trust me enough to tell me what thoughts are running through your mind."

We sat in silence. Aramaki waited with a patience I've never seen in another human. I ran phrases through my mind looking for the right wording.

"Ever since you had that chip put in my head, my head hasn't been right. My ghost has found a voice and there are moments that I wonder if I'm not turning into Kusanagi. She seems to be everywhere I turn." I stood and paced, frustrated that what I was saying was the truth, but not a very polished version. "I worry that with all of these off-links that I'll end up putting my team in danger, and I worry that I'm becoming senile." I sighed and sat back down, putting my head in my hands. "I need some time off."

Aramaki continued to sit there, no sound coming from him. Worried I'd given him a heart attack, I looked up to find him drawing very small patterns on his desk. When he noticed my interest, he looked up for an instant than went back to drawing. "When I was a little boy, I had a problem with attention span. They put me on medicines, but I was not able to improve. My grades slipped, and my family worried about my future. One day my father took me to Kyoto and we walked through the sacred rock garden at Mimurodoji. I stopped at the edge and used a small stick to draw patterns. It was the first time I had been able to focus all of my attention on one thing."

"You want me to go to Mimurodoji and play in the rock garden?"

He chuckled. "No. I find that drawing patterns on my desk helps me to focus when my thoughts are scattered. Your thoughts are very scattered right now. You may have time to focus and put your thoughts together. I need a complete team, not one that is disjointed. Find the cause of your problems. Until you do that, you will be unable to solve them." He pushed away from his desk and stood. "You have two weeks. There is trouble brewing in the security sector, the PM incident was a precursor. I will do my best to keep my word. Two weeks may not be possible."

"Thank you." He dismissed me with a wave of his hand, and I started towards the door.

"_Just come back. We can't afford to lose you too."_

**AN:** Hope everyone had a great week! -TK


	10. Paradigm Shift

**Disclaimer:** Does anyone ever get tired of these? I know as a writer I do. So, blah, blah…Shirow Masamune, not me…blah, blah, blah. (at least it's different)

**Chapter 10: Paradigm Shift**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

There are really only two places I've ever gone to think, and fishing wasn't going to do it for me today. Leaving my car at the observation point, I hiked down to my second one. The sky looked like it would stay clear for the evening. "Even if it doesn't, I can always break in and sleep inside."

Stepping into a clearing, I walked past statues of women, down beside a neo-modernism styled home, and into the woods that were filled with tall hardwoods. I knew the place I was looking for, and I followed my memories exactly. Coming around the trunk of a tree, I saw it. There in the middle of a ring of tall ginko trees was a white cherry tree. The blossoms had long fallen off, and the leaves were a dark green against the lighter green background. I found the spot at the base of the tree that had always welcomed me. Although I know that trees do not form around the humans that visit them, this spot fits me perfectly.

I find it ironic that after my transformation, I feel more comfortable around non-sentient beings. I wonder if it's because I'm now less sentient myself. However that works, this spot has allowed me to have some of my deepest thoughts. Today those thoughts are mostly missing. I didn't expect to find them in a day. As I watched the deepening purples of the sunset, I knew that today was one step closer to my answer.

sssss

It was the grumbling of my stomach that woke me the next morning. Although I do not get hungry like a human would, when my energy stores start running low, my system sends waves to my brain that my stomach is empty. I was reaching into my jacket pocket to pull out a high energy bar when my fingers got entangled in a piece of material. Pulling it out, I unraveled the green ribbon I'd found in my safe-house. I shifted around to get into my other pocket and I studied the ribbon while I opened an energy bar and ate.

There are very vivid memories of me picking up the ribbon as it lay in the black tresses of the little girl with green eyes. She was hooked up to fluids, and I was waiting for her to wake up. I left the door open so she reflected in the mirror because every time she'd ever had a body swap, she'd woken up looking at herself. That was how she most clearly identified that her world had changed again.

Was I having a dream, or was this actually a memory that had somehow been supplanted by other memories? And if it was a memory that had been supplanted, who had done it, and for what reasons? I could almost see the answer when I was distracted by the sound of tiny clawed feet approaching.

Squirrels are not intimidated by cyborgs the way they are by humans. I don't know if our sweat smells differently or what, but they are just not scared of us. Sitting very still, I amused myself by watching a grey-colored squirrel climb over my knee and down my thigh to steal the remaining part of my granola bar. It sat there for a moment, cheeks pouched out with my breakfast, and chewed. Suddenly it heard a noise to the left of me and skittered off, leaving little claw marks in my pants.

The noise to my left was big, but moving in a way that told me it was a human out for a stroll rather than a bear out for lunch. I continued to sit there, ribbon held between the fingers of my right hand. A young woman walked out from behind two trees and stopped automatically when she noticed me. She had blonde hair pulled back in a pigtail and I could tell by her clothing that she was a foreigner to this area.

"Oh, hello. I didn't know there was anyone here." She didn't come any closer.

"I was just enjoying a day of reflection."

She took in a couple of leaves that must have fallen on my head during the night. "I've always thought about sitting out here under the stars. What's the view like?" She set her pack down and knelt at the edge of the circle. Not close enough to feel threatened by me, but close enough to be friendly.

"Not very good from here. The ginkos block most of it." I looked at her petite form. "It's really not wise to go hiking by yourself."

"I'm not by myself." She sat Indian-style and dug in her pack for a bottle of water. "You're here aren't you?"

"Yeah, but I could be a criminal, waiting for your arrival."

"Mmm…if you sat here all night waiting on me to arrive, you must have been overly optimistic. I only decided to hike this morning." She unscrewed the top, setting it on her left knee.

"Good point." I brushed a loose leaf off of my shoulder.

"Anybody else come by here? Maybe this is a well-traveled area." She took a big gulp of water, watching me over the top of the bottle.

"This is actually private property" at her raised eyebrows, I continued. "But the owner doesn't mind hikers. You just missed a squirrel. He wanted me to tell you that he appreciated being scared off before he realized he'd just eaten out of my hand."

She laughed, a light twinkling sound. "A squirrel actually ate out of your hand? Was it suicidal?"

I smiled. "No, just hungry. I had a granola bar."

"Ah, are you the owner of this private recluse?" She stood, putting the pack back on.

"No, but a friend of mine was. She would welcome anyone who cared for her lands and enjoyed the peace."

"Sounds like someone I would have liked to meet." She turned to leave.

"Yeah, she was someone special."

"Good luck finding what you are here seeking. Just remember that a bird may learn to swim, but it will never be a fish."

I shook my head, trying to figure out what the hell that girl was thinking. I listened to the silence for a few more minutes until the normal noises of the forest began back up.

It was several hours later before I realized that I had talked about Kusanagi like she no longer existed. Why would I do that? Then I started thinking back to other things over the last few days. If Kusanagi is no longer around, why don't I feel that sense of loss?

But then why do I feel wrong when I'm talking with Motoko herself?

"Why can't she open my link when it's been turned off?"

Because she's not the real Kusanagi?

"If she's not the real Kusanagi, then what happened to her?"

It was as if that one instance of coherence caused everything else to click into place. Suddenly I remembered getting my arm shot off when I put it out to stop the bullets being shot at her head. I also remembered the black-market body I'd procured. It was a young teenage girl body, the cast-off of a girl that had upgraded to an older version when she turned twenty. The body was very simple in design, no special features to distinguish it except for the green eyes. Kusanagi had always favored dark violet eyes, and this had been a major change for her.

"This body seems to suit me for I am neither the person you knew as Motoko, nor am I the Puppetmaster. I am a combination of both of them, I look at the world through a new lens."

"Will I ever see you again?"

"I will be there when you need me."

"Yeah, in my head only."

"So…if the Major isn't really Kusanagi, who is she?"

Suddenly the truth of everything that had happened struck me in the face and I found myself standing and shaking in anger. There were no words to describe my feelings. Doing what I do best, I hiked my ass back up the hill and got in my car, tearing down the mountain road on my way to the office.

When I arrived, the gates were down and the guard opened the window to look out. "Hey Batou, did you get called in for something?"

"Why is everything closed up?"

He hid a yawn. "Sunday. No one works on Sunday unless there's a problem."

"Is Aramaki here?"

"Let me see…" The guard's name was Behni and he had been a member of Section 9 for two years. During that time he'd seen lots of strange things, but he'd kept his tongue to himself. Aramaki had an open door policy with his team, so this question was not a new one. He poked his head out. "Yup, he's been here about an hour."

"Fine. I need to see him." Behni opened the gates and I drove through, screeching up the ramps until I reached our designated parking area.

I waited, one foot tapping, for the elevator to reach the parking deck, than paced the elevator until the doors opened. I erupted out onto the floor and stomped down the hall and up the stairs to Aramaki's office. I banged on his door, knowing Behni would have informed him of my arrival.

"Come in."

I threw open the door and marched up to his desk, planting both hands on it and leaning forward into his face. "You Mother Fucking Son of a Bitch!" Well, that didn't do much to alleviate my anger, so I started pacing. "You put a fucking bug in my head to erase all of my memories and make me think that imposter was the real Motoko. How the fuck do you sleep with your conscience at night?" I turned, breathing hard in my anger, hoping he had some pearl of wisdom.

"No one was willing to come back without her. I have exhausted all efforts to find her. I had very limited options."

"I never fucking said that I wouldn't come back."

"No, you said that no one would ever be able to fill the hole left by her disappearance."

"That's what I said." I was remembering lots of shit now.

"And I clearly told you that you had been her top pick. She would have wanted you to be in charge, despite your volatile temperament."

I turned and looked at him. "What?"

"She chose you as her top pick, over anyone else in the department. Over any other cyborg in the system."

"Over Ishikawa?"

He shook his head in an affirmative.

"Why?"

"Because she saw the same thing in you that I'm seeing currently. You look for truth. You search it out even when it has been deliberately hidden from you." Aramaki turned to look at the painting. "Do you recollect me telling you that in order to protect the forest I had to examine every tree?"

I was still highly angered, but I was calm enough to talk rationally. "Yes. You examined this tree and found it lacking."

"No. I did not find you lacking. YOU found you lacking. I cannot have a team leader who doubts himself. You doubt yourself. I needed the Major back in order to kick you all in the ass."

I frowned. "How?"

"She's an android, loaded up with Motoko's memory backup from her last brain transfer. Then Dr. Akai and I recreated everything that'd happened since her last backup and loaded that in."

"And the bug was used to modify our memories."

He turned back to look at me. "No. The chip that we had implanted is exactly what I said it was. I would never modify your will like that. We ran a subroutine while installing the chip that would lay a new set of memories over your existing ones. The true ones are still there, that's why you were able to put the pieces together."

"By laying a new set of memories over my existing ones, aren't you modifying them?"

"We left your memories in tact. We just put a second layer over them, one that felt more substantial. You can remove those memories and be left with only the true ones."

"And the chip?" I was calming down a little.

"I don't want to lose another one of my team-mates." His eyes focused on some far away thought for an instant before honing back in on my face.

"What if Kusanagi wanted to be lost?"

"Then it looks like she obtained her wish."

I pulled up a chair and sat down across from him. "You cannot leave an android in charge like this. You know as well as I do that an android is incapable of making the correct decision in a crisis. An android can only look at the probability of the outcomes and determine the best course by the numbers. An android cannot decide that because Saito has had to take care of a relative for the last three weeks, he's a little off his mark and needs to be closer to the target. An android also would not give Togusa preferential treatment because he is a human and more susceptible to damage."

"I'm listening." He leaned forward, giving me his undivided attention.

"A cyborg is human, despite what people believe. We have human minds and human souls. That gives us the ability to understand that we can overcome great odds through determination. It also gives us the ability to modify our actions mid-flight. We cannot be lead by a puppet without one of us coming to harm."

"I agree. That's why I only gave you two weeks. You had to come to this realization on your own.

"As much as I hate to make it final by stepping in, if the Major had me picked to lead in her absence, I will step up. However, I would like to put this to the team. They may have a better solution than either of us."

"Fine. We will meet with them tomorrow morning."

"Without the Major?" I stood.

"Without the Major."

I turned to go, but Aramaki's words stopped me. "A fish may learn how to fly, but it can never be a bird."

I nodded. "Nor can a bird become a fish." The doors opened and I walked out into the corridor.

**A/N: **Ah, the joys of grad school. Between homework and CNN, Twik hasn't gotten much sleep, and is behind schedule. Gomen nasai for being two days late on the update. (egads, that rhymes). Hope everyone has a great week, I hope the flood waters recede and we can all start putting lives back together. -TK


	11. Path Forward

**Disclaimer:** Shirow Masamune is the genius who thought up these characters. Twiknham is the not-so-genius writer who manipulates them to a different tune. It is done for sheer pleasure, not for profit. Please enjoy.

**Chapter 11: Path Forward**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

The next morning, the entire team minus the Major sat down to talk. They were surprised to see me back, Aramaki had told them I was taking a two-week extended leave to sort through some issues. No one argued about the issues I was facing, each of them had seen me a little off my game.

It was Saito, the quiet one, who started it. "So, are you back to normal?"

"Yes. But you probably won't believe it after what I say next."

Ishikawa leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees. "Hell Batou, it can't be any worse than anything you've done lately. You're beginning to make me thing I need to subscribe to some type of spiritual divination service just to understand you."

"Trust you to be delicate, as always." I cleared my throat, not that I needed it. "I need all of you to seriously think about my next statement."

No one said anything, so I continued. "The Major came back over a week ago. Ever since she's come back, she's acted like herself; but not completely like herself. Some of the things she's done have caused my ghost to whisper to me."

"Like what?" Good ole' Togusa. Aramaki had called him in specifically for this meeting, and he was sitting in his chair trying to hide his physical discomfort.

"The one thing that stands out clearly to me is her inability to open my link when I've had it turned off." I speared each of them with a look. "How many times have you been off for the day, and the Major still got a message to you?" I looked specifically at Togusa. "You've told me of at least twice that you'd deliberately unlinked so you could have some family time, and she'd opened it back up to send you an urgent call."

Togusa nodded. Boma suddenly spoke up. "So you've been intentionally turning your link off to test her? That's pretty irresponsible for you. Gusty, but irresponsible."

"No. I have not turned my link off intentionally. I'll admit it's been off twice, but I did not intentionally do it."

"What, your ghost suddenly making decisions for you?" Pazu surprised all of us, he usually kept his thoughts to himself.

"Aramaki and I have been working on that. That's why he had me take some time off. However, while I was off on leave, I realized something that I needed to bring to light."

"And that was…?" Ishikawa leaned back in his chair and pulled his cap down lower on his forehead.

"Before I answer that, I need each of you to think carefully about the way the Major has behaved since she returned. Think of anything she's done that is completely inconsistent with the Major we knew before she disappeared."

"Do we have a conspiracy theory going here?" Before I had an opportunity to answer, the androids came over the loudspeakers.

"Captain Aramaki, we have an urgent dispatch from Section 7, they are under fire by an unknown assailant and are requesting backup from any security group in the area."

Aramaki stood and looked at all of us. "Men, this discussion will have to wait, we have a battle to fight."

"What about the Major?"

"She's not here, you're on your own with this one." He looked at each of us. "I know you can do this, each of you is the best in your field. Even without a commander, you still can carry out the orders."

All of us filed out of the room on a run, grabbing weapons and gear as quickly as we could before heading up to the choppers.

Saito: (I'm going to take up point at the Polianier building next door to Section 7.)

Ishikawa: (I'll be in the chopper with Togusa, scanning the system for any communications.)

Togusa: (With me? I'm staying in the chopper?)

Batou: (You're not even cleared to be at work, you're keeping your ass in the chopper. I'm going to do a drop onto the roof, anyone want to commit suicide with me?)

Boma: (Someone has to save your butt, I'll be a diversion.)

Pazu: (Hell, guess that means I'm on point, being the skinny one.)

I was glad the team hadn't ditched me to forge the path alone. I sure as hell didn't want to be the next Major; but if I had to, than I knew I needed the team's support.

The three of us dropped onto the roof of Section 7, two of us landing with heavier thumps than the third. We made our way to the elevator vent. Popping open the door, I let Pazu go first. If he was going to be point, I wanted to make sure we were there to protect him.

Batou: (Ishikawa, are the elevators disabled?)

Ishikawa: (Affirmative. Proceed.)

The three of us dropped through the opening. Ishikawa had run them up to the thirty-seventh floor so we only dropped four flights before hitting the cage. Pazu had gone first, and Boma followed me. Once we landed, we opened the door to the thirty-eighth floor and peered around cautiously. It was empty, as we had expected.

Ishikawa: (I'm getting signal interference on floor thirty-four, Section 7 is on floors thirty-one through thirty-five. Use caution, I'll update.)

Togusa: (Guys, someone just opened the left staircase door on floor thirty five. I think you may get some company.)

The three of us scattered. We had learned early that guerilla tactics were better than rank and formation. Sure enough, the door opened and two guys with masks came out with guns ready. They signaled to split, and that's when we had them. As goon one came past my hole, I crept out and zapped his cyber connections with my tazer. He fell flat, leaving him disabled for now. Pazu snuck behind the other guy and disabled his gun. We couldn't have them both out because then we couldn't mine for information.

Boma: (I'm diving this guy. Be right back.) He pulled his connection out and hooked it up. A minute later he disconnected. (You'll never believe me. Ishikawa…)

Ishikawa: (Hai…)

Boma: (Upload the data I just collected.) Another moment of silence, Pazu and I both watching for more people.

Ishikawa: (Done. I'll be back in a few. Togusa's going to fill in while I verify this.)

Pazu and I both looked at Boma. He just shrugged, and we continued. Halfway down the stairs to thirty-five, Saito chimed in.

Saito: (Guys, you have company. Two mech-suits just walked past the window on floor thirty-five.)

Batou: (What say we keep going and get them from below?) Both guys nodded and we very quietly crept past the door.

Thirty-four was a bombed out shell. There were two dead agents at the door and four goons heaped up at the opening to the offices. Although the agents had died, they'd managed to kick some ass on their way out. If I had to guess, I'd say the suits took them out when they were too tough for the infantry.

"Sons of bitches, who the hell is behind this?"

Ishikawa: (Boma, thanks. This information is legit. Guys, get out of there. We are in a hot spot and there's no way for us to fight people at this level. They already have what they came for. They're just cleaning up.)

The three of us nodded. (Okay, we're out)

Ten sneaky minutes later, we were walking out of the building with the rest of the evacuees. Once we got back to base, Pazu, Saito and I sat and waited while Ishikawa, Togusa and Boma talked with Aramaki.

"Batou, I've been thinking about what you said earlier…" Saito had one leg hanging over the arm of his chair, and he was scrunched down in it. It looked uncomfortable as hell, but he obviously didn't think so.

"Yeah?"

"I've seen some things that don't add up. Small things, the way she talks to us, the way she carries out certain duties."

"So I'm not going crazy huh?"

Pazu chimed in. "Batou, you've always been crazy. However, your instincts are almost as dead on as the Major's always have been. I can think of an instance in which she acted off-character towards me. Maybe she was PMS'ing, but you've put a doubt in my mind now. Are you sure about your feelings?"

"I'm sure that I've felt there was something wrong ever since she came back."

"Do we have a chance of existing without her?"

"We don't have a chance in hell if we think we can't. Let's wait and talk with everyone else. Maybe someone will have a difference of opinion."

**A/N:** Hello again! Hope everyone had a great week! It's been a busy week, but the GMAT is over, and I'm gonna be in grad school starting January! (just had to share)

See ya next week. -TK


	12. Answers

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Ghost in the Shell. I am ecstatic that 2nd Gig starts in a few weeks. Shirow Masamune is the excellent teller of this tale. Please enjoy the final chapter of this fanfic.

**Chapter 12: Answers**

"Talking"  
_Thinking  
_(Cyberspeaking)  
(_Figure it out_)

Before we had a chance to talk about anything further, the others came in. Boma and Ishikawa sat down while Aramaki walked to the space at the front of the room. "Thank you for being patient while we figured out what was going on. The ramifications of the data Boma downloaded are very significant." He looked at each of us before continuing. "As you are well aware, the types of equipment that have been used in the attacks are higher level military. That means that someone on the inside is pulling the strings."

"Or someone with a very big purse is buying black-market equipment." Ishikawa interjected.

"Correct. In this case, it is both. The Undersecretary to the Minister of Defense is actually known as Muso Rinault." We all looked at each other at that name. "Yes, the second in command to the terrorist group, Red Men Awake. He assassinated and then changed bodies with the original undersecretary and has been working in the upper echelons of our military undetected. Over the last six months, he's been selling weapons to the leader of RMA, Luis Otorno. Otorno attacked the PM palace in order to retrieve high level documentation about a new weapon being developed to replace the fuchikomas."  
"The PM had moved the documentation several days previous to the attack. That prompted the attack on Section 1. However, the RMA used mercenaries for that attack since there was a greater chance of failure. They did not want to be caught in the building. The mercenaries used explosives with a liberal hand, but they borrowed the equipment of the RMA. The Section 7 attack was a cooperative mission between the RMA and the mercenaries. The mercs entered first while RMA was the group you ran into while scouting. That's how Boma was able to obtain this information. The three enforcer squad members that were sent to wipe you out happened to be members of RMA and the information Boma downloaded contained the key to unlocking this puzzle."

I'm sure everyone was as relieved as I to find the answers we were seeking.

"But what about the Major?" Pazu has always been the one to get to the heart of a subject. He looks for simplicity in his world. "We've all noticed slight changes in her, changes that are not to the betterment of this team."

Aramaki sat down in his chair. That was a sign that he was either hurting, or the conversation was going to take longer than he was willing to stand. Once he was comfortably established, he speared us all with a straight look.

"The decisions I make for Section 9 are not always going to be accepted. Nor are they going to be 'in the box.' Time and again yourselves have been able to circumnavigate the system because I have given you the freedom to do so." Not a single one of us argued with his logic. "When the Major disappeared, Section 9 had to be disbanded for a short period of time. During the internal investigations, we were able to find the guilty party and see that they received justice. However, Motoko Kusanagi did not go undercover at Section 6."

"What?" Saito interjected.

"When I was putting Section 9 back together, I asked each of you if you would be able to work without Kusanagi. Each of you in his own way said that there would be no Section 9 without the Major." He leaned forward intently. "I verbally disagreed at the time, but I also knew what needed to be done in order to re-establish this team." We waited while he considered his next words. "Each of you doubted everything you did. The glue that originally held you together was Motoko Kusanagi. However, over the years, you have become an autonomous unit. Each of you working on your own, and only going back to the Major when you were not certain how to proceed."  
"About a year ago, the Major and I had a very frank discussion about who would lead if something were to happen to her. She was beginning to have some issues with the cyberization process." I looked at Aramaki in surprise, but he continued with only a sharp glance in my direction. "She had noticed a perceptible slowing in her brain activity. She was still the very best, and would remain so for years; but she was concerned about what her eventual slow reflexes would mean to our organization. During this conversation, I asked her whom she would pick to take over as leader. The person she appointed did not believe he could handle it."  
"Given that the Major's choice felt unfit to lead, and each of the other team members felt that they could not continue at Section 9 without the Major, I made a very tough decision. I worked with Dr. Akai to create an android duplicate and fill her head with the memories of Motoko Kusanagi. We then used the information we gleaned from your memories shortly after the event and the undercover op that took down Section 6's corrupt members to recreate memories to fill in the blanks."

"You Bastard!" Ishikawa stood up and slammed his hands on the table in the middle of our circle. "You let some fucking android lead us into a battle situation?" Everyone looked at him. "It's been proven statistically that androids do NOT have the free-thinking abilities required to keep human and cyborg counterparts safe from harm."

"That is true. However, I was monitoring and controlling that android during the most critical times. If you'll look back through your memories, you'll see her actions deviated quite severely from norm. Her fighting style was mine." The next few moments were silent as everyone looked back through our memories to verify the information.

Suddenly Boma spoke up. "So the bug you installed was to rewrite our minds? I'm not very comfortable with the knowledge that our superior officer believes he has the right to change our minds and memories."

Aramaki and I both knew that how he answered this would decide whether they would continue to trust him. Arguably, he'd seen his options and chosen the best one; but no one likes to be fooled. "I have under no circumstances lied to you about the chip, nor have I changed your minds. The chip IS to track you in the event you go missing. I used the opportunity of installing the chip to have Dr. Akai run a short subroutine to lay a secondary set of memories on top of your real ones."  
"This was done only because each of you refused to move forward. The Major was a very integral part of our team, but she wasn't the only person on this team. Each of you is extremely powerful in his own manner. Now that you know the truth, I will have Dr. Akai remove the memories."

"So, will we have to worry about you doing this again?" Togusa spoke quietly from his chair.

"Section 9 is a critical part of this country's defense against the cyber-crimes that are becoming increasingly prevalent in society. I will ALWAYS do what is best for my team and this country. You will have to trust me to be looking out for your best interests in the long run." He looked at each of us. "We never hid your true memories from you." He looked at me specifically. "Batou figured out what was going on and confronted me about it yesterday. Why don't you ask him about his position?"

Suddenly everyone was staring at me. Uncomfortable does not begin to explain my feeling. "I was VERY angry at the chief. I stormed in here and we had a very loud discussion about the matter. I brought up the exact same issues that you have both brought up, and I am satisfied with the answers. We can't let Kusanagi's disappearance destroy everything we've worked these last few years to build."  
I leaned forward and put my hands on my knees. "Eventually we're going to lose members. The Major just happened to be the first. Even if we never lose a teammate in the field, there are good chances that one of us will develop a chemical imbalance and our brains will harden before the medical staff becomes aware of the problem."  
"I realize we undergo regular checkups to help prevent that, but accidents happen. If Section 9 disbanded every time we lost a member, our enemies would quickly have a powerfully dangerous weapon to use against us. I do not like being deceived, but I was also one of the people who said we could not continue without her."  
"I watched each of us interact during the last mission, and I believe that we need to take some time to talk about our path forward. The Chief will remove your false memories immediately; but even if he didn't, now that you know they are false, I bet you could remove them yourselves." Everyone looked around for a few seconds, than they did some internal investigations. I gave them time, I knew they were looking for reasons to trust that Aramaki didn't betray them. Finally they came back out, Ishikawa was smiling widely, Togusa was frowning, and the others were in various states of acceptance.  
"The Major was a great leader. I do not see how anyone could possibly replace her. How would each of you feel about us working without a leader? Aramaki continues to hold the job of chief lord overseer, and we all just discuss plans with each other? That's basically what we've been doing for the last two years, the Major only did critical damage control."

Togusa spoke up. "Who would be in charge of critical damage control now?" He looked at Aramaki. "Who did Motoko pick to take over?"

The Chief looked at me and everyone followed his gaze. "Batou."

"Would you be willing to assume the responsibility of leading us?" Togusa continued.

"No. But I will accept the responsibility of being the critical damage control advisor. With one stipulation, when I lose my temper, someone had better step in and overrule me." I smiled to let them know that although I was serious, I was also being myself.

"I don't think that will be a problem." Ishikawa always knew the right thing to say.

Everyone chuckled and we spent the next few hours discussing the new format of Section 9. When Togusa yawned, I glanced at my watch. It was almost 3am and all of us were tired. We agreed to take the next day off unless an emergency happened. When I left, I felt at peace for the first time since I started on this long journey.

**sssss**

The next morning found me sitting on my pier, fishing pole in hand. I was supposed to have gotten two weeks off, I figured I might as well enjoy one last day. I suspect it's going to be a while before we get our new roles down pat and running smoothly. Crime never stops, and as a member of the team most equipped to handle the new crimes, I'm preparing for a long year.

I was reeling in my third stingray, which meant the bait was too low on the bobber, as an old man sat down beside me. Rod in one hand, cooler of beer in the other, he stumbled and barely managed to stay on the dock. I unhooked the ray and threw it back in while he baited his hook.

"Sinker's too low." I nodded and pulled the line the rest of the way in to adjust it.

We sat and talked about inane things for a while until he slowly nodded off. I continued to catch Barracuda and Halfbreak over the next two hours. When the old man's pole bent and he didn't react, I unhooked and threw back a mackerel that just happened to swim too close to the shore. Now his float bobs in the water without any bait to attract customers. He is probably here more as nostalgia than any deep desire to fish. Like me, he probably wanted the quiet time to sit and reflect.

It was completely silent when he slowly opened his eyes and looked at me. "Have you ever heard of a fish called Exocoetidae?"

Boy is this one off his rocker. "No."

"It looks like a mating between a fish and a bird. Some people call them flying fish." He stood and gathered his gear. "A fish and a bird can never become the other, but their evolutionary offspring can."

Suddenly the words all made sense. Although we have limitations when we think without our own boundaries, once we break away from set ideas, we are given new options. Like a fish that learns to grow wings.

He walked off, and I knew I was looking at the back of an old friend. I realized that friend was also telling me that things were different there too. "So you didn't leave me after all. You were there the whole time to make sure I made the correct choices." I watched as the old man faded into the distance. _Thank you Motoko._

_(You're welcome.)_

**A/N:** You have survived another one. Thank you for all of the reviews and for reading. Who knows what the next story will be, or when it will be posted. Right now I'm mid-write on about 5, so whichever one wraps first will be my next one. Take Care. -TK


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